CUNY Students Postpone Vote on BDS Resolution ‘Out Of Respect’ For Shabbos

The council representing graduate and post-graduate students at the City University of New York (CUNY) has temporarily postponed a vote on boycotting Israeli academia “out of respect for the Jewish Sabbath.”

The decision followed a heated Friday night meeting of CUNY’s Doctoral Students Council (DSC) that was slated to endorse “the boycott of Israeli academic institutions and the divestment from Israeli companies.” The proposed resolution would also call for the termination of the partnership between CUNY’s Baruch College and Israel’s College of Management Academic Studies, which is located in Rishon Letzion.

The DSC, which represents 4,700 students, had come under fire for scheduling the meeting on Friday evening, when religiously observant Jewish students would be unable to attend. Eric Alterman, a professor of English at Baruch College and a columnist for the Nation who said he represented 100 progressive academics opposing the boycott, told the Council that passing the resolution on Shabbat is a “terrible idea” that “would look as it was done in the middle of the night, the way communists used to pass their resolutions in the 30s.”